


Chrysalis

by Zahira



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 3.4 Spoilers, Ascian, Choking, Consensual Snuff, Death, F/M, Fingering, Jealousy, Rebirth, Strangling, erotic asphyxiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:38:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zahira/pseuds/Zahira
Summary: An unexpected wrinkle in the Ascians' plans may leave the Warrior of Light in grave danger with no hope of victory. Elidibus proposes a solution to ensure his lover will not meet her final end.Fem-WoL, preexisting relationship.





	1. Foreboding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Warrior of Light is invited to a dinner for two and fails to consider the implications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our story picks up at the beginning of the 3.4 MSQ during the dinner scene and accompanies it to the end. Highly recommend having finished 3.4 so the reactions and mentioned events make sense.

It has been far too long since you have taken time for yourself. Simply to exist with a friend and share humorous stories without any secondary aim or goal or concern about whether you may see each other again is delightful.

“May I ask a personal question?"

But then he had to go and spoil it. The smile on your face freezes, becoming a polite mask. Some combination of something in Aymeric's eyes and voice makes you realize you have made a misstep somewhere along the way. And now, at the worst possible time, you feel the aetheric pull of Elidibus’ appearance. Surely he knows you cannot direct your attention to him in this setting, knowing you must allow him to watch you or be seen as a lunatic who converses with walls.

“Now that the dust has settled, what will you do? Not as a Scion, I mean, but… what do you want for yourself?”

Aymeric seems shy, almost bashful, like a maid who fears rejection, despite not having asked a romantically loaded question. You now realize that perhaps in accepting an invitation for a dinner for two, perhaps in suggesting he accompany you on an adventure sometime, he may have gotten the wrong idea. You pause, mulling over a means to correct this perception. Aymeric, meanwhile, seems to be hoping your pause is a search for entirely different words.

In that moment, a knight from House Fortemps bursts into the room, leaving you wondering whether the Emissary's presence here is a result of this apparently impending emergency; it would almost be better to believe that than think he would fall prey to jealousy, as any normal man might at seeing his lover with a handsome young head of state. You focus entirely on the knight, who demands your immediate presence at the manor.

Standing to follow the knight, you turn to Elidibus, who only... looks at you. His masked gaze is unreadable, his mouth and posture carefully neutral. He withdraws as suddenly as he entered; _We will speak of this later_ , the unspoken implication. A knot forms in the pit of your stomach--he has never behaved this way.


	2. Irrationality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elidibus confronts the WoL about the dinner. The ensuing argument reveals a deeper reason for his uncharacteristic outburst.

Xelphatol, then. Alphinaud insists on accompanying you despite the danger of tempering should the Ixal succeed in their summoning rituals. The urge to do _something_ is understandable, but the risk is difficult to accept. He insisted on leaving right away and rushed off to Camp Dragonhead without you, expecting you to follow quickly. And you have every intention of doing so, except...

As you rummage through your room in Fortemps Manor, preparing your pack and equipment, he appears to you again. No matter what pressing issue calls, he receives your full attention whenever possible; despite not knowing the details of his plans, you know they lead to your unity in the end, so you trust. If he delays you, you trust the delay is for the best.

Yet again he seems so carefully neutral, as if he is pushing his usual level of restraint to its limits. "Elidibus?"

"Was I simply some distraction for you? Would you prefer to go back to playing with mortals?" He truly _is_ jealous. Remarkable.

"Aymeric is nothing. He has... misconceptions which need correcting. I was deciding how to correct them when we were interrupted."

"You do not belong among mortal men. You are eternal, as we are. You need only take one more step, yet you hesitate. For him? For some other?”

"Aymeric is _nothing_ , Elidibus."

"Then if he were to meet his end?"

Your blood runs cold at the implicit threat behind his tensely guarded tone. The silence where he was expecting your reaction only frustrates him further, jaw now clenched in restrained anger, and you quickly move to explain. "Ishgard has need of him. It has naught to do with personal feelings."

"So there are personal feelings."

"No, I--" You sigh, recognizing that merely answering his queries directly will leave you trapped. Master of diplomacy that Zodiark's Emissary is, he knows how to maneuver a simple back-and-forth argument such as this to provide him with several ready angles of attack. A different approach is necessary. "Elidibus, I am _yours_. Tell me what I can say or do that would reassure you." You reach toward him--an offer of conciliation for him to choose to accept or reject.

Elidibus stares for a moment, then lets out a long breath. "You wish to put me at ease? End this hesitation, and allow me to remake you. That you might never know cessation, that you might never face oblivion. Commit to becoming what you are.”

He has always held fast to patience before, understanding that you have responsibilities that cannot be put aside just as he does, knowing that he has time to wait. It is impossible to avoid wondering what has changed.

Finally he grasps your outstretched hand, pulling your body into his, wrapping his other arm around your waist as the first moves up to touch your face. You rest a hand on his chest as he strokes with gloved fingertips and cool claws over your skin. His touch communicates far more than his words as your aether mingles gently under his caresses; you feel his affection radiating from him as with any other sufficiently private meeting between you, but now some intense undercurrent of _fear_ lurks beneath his clean placidity. Elidibus is half-crazed at the thought of losing you. Such irrationality is unlike him, evoking this strange jealousy though he knows your soul.

He finally speaks again as he traces your features. "Were anything to happen to you..."

"What...?"

"You may fail to find the path alone. I would be there to guide you, lest you be unmade."

"Why would anything happen to me?"

Elidibus' silence says more than any answer he could have given in its place.

“Is there something I should know?”

Still he remains silent, his expression unreadable on account of his mask, but you wonder whether the tightness you detect in his bearing is real or imagined. So this is the source of his unusual irrationality.

And you trust.

"Give me some time to think."

He responds by pulling you close for a long but gentle kiss; his essence, dancing between you, soothes like a cool ointment to sun-scathed skin while infecting you with his hunger for a more intimate setting. Nevertheless, he pulls away and whispers for you to go, departing before your ragged breathing returns to normal or the gnawing emptiness within you subsides. After a long moment, you continue readying your equipment for the journey into Ixali territory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to Ozma for helping me tweak some problem lines in the chapter.


	3. End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After preventing the kobolds from summoning Titan, the Warrior of Light sits alone nursing a heavy heart. Elidibus returns to hear her answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit.

Days of turmoil follow in your desperate bid to end the schemes of the Warriors of Darkness once and for all. Tonight, a hard-won rest is yours courtesy of your hosts at Camp Overlook, though as usual the celebrations are more a display of their relief than of your receipt of gratitude. Even a long catch-up with Alisaie held little comfort for you. She had naught but praise for your inspirational bravery in the past, while you could only remember the horrors of the day.

_Mother... Father... I can't... I can't find you...._

You wipe your eyes once again. Alone under the stars well away from the watchful eyes of Overlook’s guards, you have finally allowed yourself to feel for the intense desperate pleas of the Kobold child who inadvertently summoned Titan as an avatar of his rage and sorrow.

"If you are unmade, many more icons of sorrow will be born with no champion left to save the land."

So wrapped up in your feelings are you that his voice startles you, the normal sense of his dark rifts drowned out by your troubled thoughts. His words are a ridiculous and transparent manipulation; his own plan involves the creation of these "icons of sorrow," and you frustrate those plans by slaying them and ending their crystal supply, but he wants you to choose his path and appeals to the warrior who would do anything to save the innocent.

Elidibus does the unthinkable in this moment--he sits behind you on the ground. With a bitter laugh born of sullen absurdity, you wonder how he keeps his pristine robes clean.

"The pieces are moving into place as we speak. You will soon be drawn into battle with five whose power each outstrips yours. Have you an answer?"

Silence hangs between you. Elidibus waits patiently for you to consider. Your thoughts drift back to the Kobold child.

_Wake up! Why… why… where are you?!_

How many people would be similarly devastated by your passing? Everyone places so much of their happiness in your hands. You bear the burden as well as you can, but there are none to take it up should you fall. Do you not owe it to them to continue doing all you can, as you always have? And if you fell, could the people not desperately summon some twisted avatar of you, as they did Phoenix?

And of course, this is the next logical step in your strange relationship with Elidibus. To become more than an ephemeral blip in his extreme lifespan. A commitment.

A nagging thought crops up at the last moment. "Why have none of the other Warriors of Light from past eras chosen this option?"

"Without another to tell them of the latent power they could claim, it was rarely discovered. The transition requires knowledge of what to do the first time, and Hydaelyn does not freely share this knowledge with Her chosen."

"Rarely?"

"It has happened."

"I suppose I thought they would be more prominent." Knowing the futility of your actions, you nevertheless distract yourself by combing through old acquaintances for possible Warriors of Light. The Company of Heroes, if anyone?

"Perhaps they are prominent in new and different ways you had not considered. Or perhaps they wished only for a life of peace. You yourself were targeted by political schemes for your mortal strength alone. Add to that immortality.... You see why this new strength would be best kept secret."

"I see." You could hardly forget Ul'dah. Silence settles back in for a long moment as you look up at the stars. _What if this was his plan all along? To get close to me and destroy me by my own foolish choice?_ But again you choose to trust, and you finally voice your decision. "To be led to eternal life with you, or to die tomorrow with no knowledge of how to find my way back here. Surely you do not believe this is a true choice."

"You mean--"

"I choose you. Guide me."

He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling your back against his chest, his legs on either side of yours. His warmth radiates through you, soft and comforting like fresh linens after a bath, _happy_ at finally receiving long-sought consent to enact this plan. He places his lips at your ear, whispering intimately: "Envision your crystal of light. Allow it to fill your entire awareness."

His mask nuzzles against your cheek; his lips trace the sensitive skin of your neck. One hand turns your chin to meet his lips, drawing you into his electrifying kiss, then occupies itself slipping under your clothes and stroking your breasts with no discernible pattern. A cold stroke of the backs of his metal claws over your nipple makes your back arch, a soft massage of the whole surface leads you to deepen your kiss, a brief pinch and roll of a nipple leaves you tightening in anticipation of his touch between your thighs. The yearning he awakens dominates all, leaving you aching for more.

He barely breaks your kiss to speak, his lips always touching your skin if not your lips. "The path you have chosen is far more distracting than this. Practice. Focus on your crystal."

His other hand roams torturously slowly south from its position at your waist, under your waistband. By the time he reaches his goal, you are soaked and desperate for his touch, lifting your hips to meet him, draping your legs over his as one of his fingers peeks between labia and slips inside, distributing your moisture over your sensitive clit with gentle strokes up and down.

So focused are you on attempting to ignore your need in favor of your crystal as bid that you almost fail to realize his higher hand has moved away from your breasts to your neck. Instinct causes you to tense, but Elidibus rubs steady circles over your clit, shushing you softly, occasionally nibbling at your cheek or neck.

You whimper under his touch, rocking your hips into his hand in rhythm, building tight waves of pleasure that tense in your core, already anticipating their release; he chides you gently, insisting you focus once more. Elidibus allows his aether to bleed faintly, his form intact yet also enveloping you, tasting your pleasure as his own even as he asks you to deny it.

A shudder courses through you, causing your eyes to flutter closed involuntarily as you lay back into him and pull your knees up, spreading your legs wider for him, allowing him easier access to every quivering fold. He responds by closing his hand on the arteries in your neck, causing your awareness of all but the most prominent sensations to dull while those that remain are intensified. You hold the image of your crystal in your mind, but Elidibus challenges your focus by choosing this moment to increase the pressure and speed of his strokes on your clit by a blissful fraction. Your breasts ache for his touch, nipples painfully erect as they move against the cloth covering them, the thin dark mist around you only invoking a frustratingly gentle tingle that teases without pressure.

"Not yet..." A soft hitch in his breath against your ear reveals the mirror of your lust in him.

"Elidibus, please..." He responds by tightening his grip on your neck.

And still you trust.

“That's it…” Your whole world dims until it contains only your crystal... and him. His lips and his ragged breaths matching your own in your ear, the muscles of his aether form against your back, his fingertips playing at your throbbing, begging clit with rapid strokes now, the tips of his clawed gloves gently teasing at your entrance as if by accident. It is almost too much; every muscle in your body is tensed around the intense pleasure Elidibus gifts you.

"Now.”

Lifting your hips into his hand once more, grinding into his pressure, you send yourself over the edge. Every muscle in your body quivers and burns with your climax, wracked with blissful shudders, made all the more intense by the fact that it is all you can feel due to the narrowing of your awareness.

He recovers from the taste of your mortal release more quickly than you and continues his lesson, whispering so very softly in your ear as your tremors subside: "Good. Only do that again and this will work.” In your afterglow, Elidibus does not release the pressure on your neck; rather, he intensifies it, finally closing down on your airway as well. “Now, focus... one last time."

You cannot help but involuntarily struggle; your hands try to remove his to no avail, and your legs kick out in search of some purchase that will allow you to move out of his crushing grip. And your lungs, Twelve, they _burn_ more fiercely than you can fathom. You hold your crystal in your mind as his free hand, its fingertips slick with your moisture, strokes your face and hair with gentle sounds of "shh, soon."

Soon indeed--your hands and legs, previously struggling instinctively, begin to feel unbearably heavy as the edges of your vision dim. At the center as all falls dark is the crystal, looming until it encompasses your entire awareness. Though you feel a foreign presence pressing against you, guiding you to the crystal, you concentrate there largely on your own. Here, there is no pain, no burning of lungs, no limbs unwilling to move. Here, there is only cool, clean radiance.

Your body falls limp in the Ascian's arms as your heart finally falters. Hydaelyn's Champion lies dead by her own request at the hands of Zodiark's Emissary, her lips parted in a last desperate gasp for air, the night already sapping her of her warmth.

And still you trust.


	4. Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Warrior of Light's trust was not misplaced.

Within your crystal, unaware of the condition of your flesh, everything feels _right_. You are anchored. You are safe.

The other brushes against you gently, beckoning. You touch and mingle intimately as you follow, the other's calm serenity a match for your own new peace. He pulls at you tenderly, spreading you back out throughout flesh that you belatedly remember is yours, the sensation as unwelcome as throwing back the covers on a cold northern morning.

You awake with a furrowed brow, laid back against Elidibus in a faint pre-dawn light.

It felt no different than a deep sleep. In fact, you might doubt your goal had been accomplished had you only the sensations of flesh to judge, but there can be no mistaking the shining aetheric hum that is the crystal at your core, a sound that cannot be heard. Your heart now beats because it is driven by the crystal, not because it must do so to drive your life.

Elidibus strokes your face and hair, his calming energy welcome in this transition. He is _so warm_. Or had you already begun to grow cold? How long were you gone? Minutes? Bells? Would it matter? "Welcome back."

You sit up, pressing a hand to your chest as if looking for the crystal in place of your heart, but not finding it. As you move, you find your senses seem sharper; you are distinctly aware of how much _life_ is around you, the aether of every crawling, leaping, or flying thing around you like irritating beacons to your senses. Perhaps this is why Elidibus prefers the stillness of night and less-inhabited vistas; this will be difficult to adapt to.

"Are you well?"

You laugh sharply, perhaps a little too loudly. What an absurd question. You just _died_. Standing to test your limbs, all seems well aside from an intense localized tingle. "I feel... normal. My foot is asleep." You turn back to Elidibus, who now stands as well, and let out a startled breath. You had no idea darkness could be so _radiant_ , yet this newfound sense would have you believe that he all but glows black before you, a sight that cannot be seen, his aether not so entirely bound within the flesh as you believed.

"The bodies you inhabit will function as they did before." He lays a hand on your once again beating heart to demonstrate his point, his calming darkness twisting up his arm and around your chest, warm, electric, and smooth--an aetheric embrace you recognize the feel of but had never seen before, a sensation that cannot be touched. "But they will instead be sustained by the core aether of your crystal. If you fail to carry out some vital function--eating, sleeping, breathing--the host will carry on, nourished by taking energy from your core to sustain itself, unless you withdraw into your crystal as before and deny it. Take care of your host as you did before, lest it drain you faster than it can replenish you."

"So my body is truly just a vessel now." You stare at your hands, not certain of how to feel about this. The advantages are undeniable, but to think of your body as some discardable host….

"I have always told you that you are so much more than the mortals you cling to."

"Can I... That is, should I fall in battle...."

"Now that you are anchored to your crystal rather than your flesh, you will always return there. But the vessel will decay without your core sustaining it.”

You shake your head, searching for the words, envisioning your encounter with the Sahagin Elder that now seems like a lifetime ago, worried that you will take over your companions against their will as he did.

Elidibus surprises you by answering you before you form your question into words: "No. To take a living host is no small feat. What you saw involved mindless tempered who agree to anything in service of their gods. I will instruct you after you adapt to your condition." One corner of his lips tugs gently upward, amused at your obvious confusion. "Your gift is far stronger after this change. Surely you can feel it?”

Ah, so this new sense that is not sense truly is a magnified Echo. Your brow kinks as you ponder the implication of a direct response to thought unvoiced. "Elidibus... this is all so much to take in. Please let my thoughts be my own while I adapt."

"As you like." Rejected, he withdraws from you in a way that you are certain would have been imperceptible before, but he is right; you cannot help but see these things now. Possibly you are wrong to pull away. You make a note to apologize later, then realize he likely already knows you mean to. Perhaps that is enough. This constant resonance with him is a new level of intimacy you had not expected.

A loud call of your name from the direction of Camp Overlook breaks your introspection. Elidibus holds your gaze for a long moment, taking in the sight of you, and you wonder whether your aetheric appearance has changed as radically as his has to you. He does not need to say goodbye, nor that he will come to you again at your first chance. You already know.


	5. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'shtola notices a strange change in the Scions' champion.

Another crisis averted. Your last desperate battle against the Warriors of Darkness would have gone far more poorly had Urianger not stepped forward and revealed his loyalties. Though you did not need to rely on it this time, you are glad of this new failsafe. And to see five examples of the Echo's true capabilities, to know that you are capable of all the same… astounding.

Blissfully, if Hydaelyn knew of the change in you, She chose not to mention it in front of your companions. Seeing the Word completely freeze an enraged servant with a single casual motion was disturbing, reminding you that you are still a long way from free; you are Hers, as Elidibus is His.

“A word?”

Y'shtola's voice does not surprise you, aware as you are now--the constant nagging at your mind from all sides has been the most difficult thing about this change. A glance up from your chair in the Rising Stones reveals that she looks rather vexed; you gesture at the chair near you, leading her to sit and lean in close.

“What has happened to you? You are different now. You look like _them_.”

It takes a great deal of effort to keep your face a mask of stoicism. “Them?”

Y'shtola nods. “Do you recall when we first encountered the Warriors of Darkness? I said the aether moves strangely about them. Now it moves the same way about you.”

It occurs to you in your relief that Y'shtola has not seen an Ascian since her recovery from the Lifestream. You had nothing to fear, if you even bear any similarities to them that would be visible to her. And yet, still you must select your words carefully; you doubt your companions would approve of how you came by this change. “I discovered knowledge of a meditation that allowed me to change the manner in which I draw upon the Crystal of Light. Powerful as the Light was on their world, they must have discovered the same.”

“I see. Will you not share this knowledge?”

Absolutely not. “There are strange implications. For now, I would share it with another crystal bearer only.”

Y'shtola narrows her eyes at you, judgment honing her words to bladed edges. “If you have taken on some fatal weakness in your bid for the power to protect, your closest companions must needs be told. Ware those who withhold information.”

“Nothing so dramatic. Our strength has been targeted before. Best not confess the full details of any additional strength we claim, lest the walls hear.” You give her a cynical smirk, though not for the reasons just spoken. Ware those who withhold information indeed. “Y'shtola, have I ever given you reason to distrust me?” Deceit. Even as you say it, you know that if they knew everything, the Scions would never place their confidence in you again.

Dissatisfied but cowed, Y'shtola looks away, guilt plain in her eyes even as she wants to demand answers. “Of course not. You risk yourself for us time and again. Very well.” She stands, seeming to be making a genuine if unsuccessful effort to reconcile her faith in you with her Sharlayan compulsion to know everything. “Should you change your mind, I remind you that neither have we given reason for you to distrust us.”

As Y'shtola walks away, you tell yourself this was necessary; that had the battle gone as you thought it would, this would have been your only chance.

But no. In truth, you wanted this. For you. For him. Together. In truth, you are relieved that you were given an excuse to stop making excuses and simply trust.


End file.
